Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has been transformed. The nascent rebellion that was under way in Pandemonium has ignited into an all-out revolution in Requiem, and Lena is at the center of the fight.

After rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven—pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. Regulators now infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels, and as Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor.

Maybe we are driven crazy by our feelings.

Maybe love is a disease, and we would be better off without it.

But we have chosen a different road.

And in the end, that is the point of escaping the cure: We are free to choose.

We are even free to choose the wrong thing.

This is the third book in the series and will contain spoilers for both Delirium and Pandemonium. I am trying out a new spoiler feature, the very last bullet point should have “view spoiler.” If it does not, please don’t read it if you haven’t read Requiem.

What I Thought…

I didn’t read any reviews but I caught quite a bit of comments on twitter and saw quite a few ratings on GoodReads that made me nervous about reading Requiem. Despite the worry I knew I had to read it. I’m glad I read it, but I can see what all the fuss is about. I made an attempt to read it several months ago and couldn’t get into it so this time I listened to it. Not sure if listening to it made it better, or if I was just in a better frame of mind but it was better on the second attempt.

Despite all the things that I’ll get to in a minute I can say without a doubt that Lauren Oliver’s writing is pure magic. It’s lyrical and magical and beautiful.

Requiem is narrated by both Hana and Lena. Sarah Drew did a great job with the narration. If I left off in the middle of a chapter it was very easy to tell who was narrating when I picked it back up.

At first I was worried that I wouldn’t enjoyed Hana’s chapters – she was cured after all. But I actually liked Hana’s story so much more than Lena’s. I found Hana’s story more compelling. Hana was cured, but it definitely didn’t work on her like it was supposed to. She is set to be married to the mayor, Fred. Fred is… less than awesome. I felt so bad for Hana. Her parents acted like this was the greatest match ever, but you could see on the inside that life is going to be rough for Hana.

I found Lena to be annoying. Her endless confusion over Alex and Julian irritated me. The way she treated Julian at times irritated me as well. I know that having Alex come back made her confused, but I didn’t like listening to her debate with herself. I also found that often her reactions to things were so childish, and for someone who has been out in the wilds and doing all the things she was doing it seemed out of place.

I enjoyed watching how the revolution was unfolding, though I wanted more. It wasn’t lacking per se, but I could have read so much more about it. I liked their plans and their struggles and I liked how you could see how the cured felt about the revolution.

Lauren Oliver was not afraid to kill some people. One in particular had me tearing up and all sorts of angry because I had become quite attached to that character. I’m ok with authors killing people off, I just wish she would have chosen someone else!

I know that most everyone had a huge problem with the ending, and I totally get why. While I would have preferred a different type of ending I did kind of like the ending.

My thoughts on the ending: View Spoiler »I mostly like that it was left up in the air. A lot of times authors seem to go out of their way to wrap everything up in a nice and slap a bow on it and I liked that Oliver didn’t do that. However I do wish that she would have wrapped up some things, like how Portland would be after the revolution. I don’t need wine and roses, but leaving everything up to my imagination kind of sucks too. « Hide Spoiler

Originially I rated Requiem 4 stars, but after writing my review there were just too many things that bothered me that I had to bump it down to 3 stars. If you have read the first two I do recommend reading Requiem, but with lower expectations.

Notable Quotes

“But maybe happiness isn’t in the choosing. Maybe it’s in the fiction, in the pretending: that wherever we have ended up is where we intended to be all along.”

You are right – Lauren Oliver is a great writer. I liked Hana more than Lena, too, in Requiem. I wish I hadn’t invested so much of my emotions into this series. It felt pointless at the end. I’m glad you enjoyed the audio, though!

Oooh, how cool! You have SPOILER tags. You use WordPress, don’t you? Man, I signed up with the wrong blogging platform…

Truthfully I haven’t read Delirium or the sequel yet, but I’m still *really* curious about the series, so I’m going to read and see whether it’s worth still checking out the books.

Ahh! I’ve heard really good things about her writing, and I’ve gotten into audiobooks lately, so this makes me think that maybe hers is the next to try, especially if it brought you back from not feeling invested the first time.

Lena and Julian/Alex. So I’d already read the spoilers about those pple from the other books in other reviews, but agh! Sometimes I think it must be impossible to ever have a love triangle where you don’t become frustrated with the heroine, since waffling between the choices seems to be requisite. Grrr…

Revolution! Deaths! The quote you chose!
Okay, so it is a bit sad that the ending of the trilogy seems to divide fans so decisively but but… I really have to get on this series, don’t I?
Sorry that you didn’t enjoy the book as much as you’d have liked, but yay for having listened to a great story and narrator :).Christina @ Christina Reads YA recently posted…On Lebanon, Writing, & Reading

I may end up listening to this one since you liked the narrator, which you know we both find important.

Perhaps I’ll start starring my audiobook reviews twice- once for story and once for narration, but for me, a good narrator can make a so-so story good, and a bad narrator could ruin a good story… Hmmm.Kate- Midnight Book Girl recently posted…Sundays In Bed With… Just Like Fate